Adding some Atmosphere

I've had some lovely compliments recently about the world-building in my novels, so I thought I'd share some aspects of 'Anglo-Saxon' life here with you today.

In my novel Cometh the Hour, I imagined the Sutton Hoo burial and mentioned the lyre that was included in the grave goods. But in all my novels, I've written scenes set in the mead hall during a feast, where invariably there is a scop telling tales, riddles, and playing music.

My photo of the reconstructed lyre at Sutton Hoo

Here's a link (the image of the inside of the mead hall is not strictly accurate) to a piece from Grendelcynn on Youtube, played on a similar instrument. It will give a flavour of the kinds of sound one might have heard at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_GVjcVBiP4

Of course, lyres weren't the only musical instruments. There were also wooden and even bone whistles, or flutes. The Malham Pipe was originally thought to have been Bronze Age, but is now thought to be post-Roman, and it might have sounded something like this:

https://soundcloud.com/pittriversound-1/malham-pipe-jig-eric-todd-1951

I'm very lucky in that the Thegns of Mercia specialise in reconstructing the earlier 'Anglo-Saxon period'. They are constantly inspiring me, and if you've read Cometh the Hour and/or the follow-up, The Sins of the Father, and want an idea of the wrap-over coats that my characters wear, well, here's an image, with kind permission from Æd Thompson and with credit to Jon Wylie of the Thegns:

Please do visit their site or catch them on Twitter and Facebook for more wonderful photos and reconstructions.

Of course, we all know that people at this time loved their 'bling'. Those who've read 'Sins' might recall that a Kentish bride was wearing a rather lovely, and rather large, brooch. My inspiration for this piece was the Kingston Brooch which, I think you'll agree, is also rather lovely:

Image via Wiki Commons: Link

This has been dated to the seventh century and was found near Kingston in Kent, so I'd say it's a pretty perfect fit for my seventh-century royal Kentish bride to wear on her wedding day!

Sadly, there are no surviving examples of Anglo-Saxon wooden buildings, but to get a sense of what they looked like, you could do worse than visiting West Stow Anglo-Saxon Settlement, where they have examples of various styles of buildings:

Via Wiki Commons - Link

There are a few surviving stone churches, however, and whilst it's fair to say that in the early conversion period the churches were also built of wood, there is a remarkable stone built church which has been dated to around the time that my main character in The Sins of the Father, Ethelred, became king of Mercia. This one is in Northumbria, land of his enemies, but let's not hold that against this beautiful building, which I was lucky enough to visit in the spring when the blossom was out:

My photo of Escomb Church, Bishop Aukland, Co Durham

So these are some of the sights, but what about the sounds? The characters in my books would all have spoken local dialect versions of Old English, which sounds like a language far removed from our own, but there are lots of recognisable words, if you look closely.

I wrote a post a little while ago, looking at the words of the Lord's Prayer, and how we can decipher some of the Old English words. 

The Lord's Prayer in Old English - written 
for me by calligrapher, reenactor, and friend,
Dawn Burgoyne

However, perhaps to get a flavour of the seventh-century mead hall we'd be better off listening to a lovely reading of the epic poem Beowulf - which might have originated in Mercia! - by Heiðniborg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CpKlEiahtI

A page from a copy of Beowulf

Outside the mead hall you'd hear various sounds, none louder than thunder. Animals, the clanging from the forge, and conversation (in Old English, of course). Whilst putting together this little blog post I came across this fun website. It's a bit too 'modern' for our purposes, but I reckon if you set the sounds to this pattern, you'll get an idea:

Click HERE to visit the site

Of course, one thing I can't do is bring you the smells of Anglo-Saxon life. In my books, I try to focus on the more pleasant aromas - cooked food, flower blossom, herbs - but I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that some other smells might have been distinctly unpleasant, so perhaps we should be grateful that blog posts can't yet bring Smell-0-Vision to the world!

My two-book series, Tales of the Iclingas, is complete and available now:

Cometh the Hour:

The Sins of the Father:

And you can find my other novels, stories, and my nonfiction books HERE

Tamworth - Ancient Mercian Royal Residence

Last time, I wrote about the site of Bamburgh Castle,  which features in both of my Tales of the Iclingas novels. This time I thought I’d explain some of the background to my choice of the main Mercian setting in both books: Tamworth. This is where Penda, the last pagan Mercian king, and his family, whose stories are told in the books, had their main residence.

There’s some debate about whether Tamworth can truly be described as the ancient capital of the midland kingdom of Mercia, because Repton also claims that title. On a recent BBC Radio 4 programme, Gareth Williams, the British Museum's Curator of Medieval Coinage, said that the notion of ancient capitals is "a product of nineteenth-century antiquarianism." If we think in terms of 'royal centres' though, I think both places have a claim, up to a point, and I’ll explain why.

Though the kings at this time were itinerant, moving from royal vill to royal vill, it seems clear that they had their favourite, or main, residences and these changed according to which family was ruling. 

Mercia, more so than the other kingdoms, grew from, and to an extent remained, a federation of smaller kingdoms and tribes which gradually became part of Greater Mercia, and it suffered from dynastic disputes which played a significant part in its eventual demise. Even in the later part of the period, its administrative system differed from that of its neighbour, Wessex, in that the leading men of the Witan and those charged with the business of local government, tended to be leaders of those tribes and smaller kingdoms, rather than being appointed centrally by the king.

And so, we find that a later king, Cenwulf (depicted left), seemed to favour Winchcombe in modern-day Gloucestershire and used the abbey there as a repository for royal documents. Meanwhile the mausoleum at Repton housed the remains of King Wiglaf and his family, as well as being the base for King Burgred, who was ousted when the Great Viking army made camp there.

The crypt at Repton

Offa, in the eighth century, seems to have favoured Tamworth, building a ‘palace’ there. So I think it’s fair to say that at different times, different places were the ‘capital’ of Mercia, but all were situated  within the core area of the original ‘kingdom’. I chose to make my character King Penda part of the Iclingas, Icel being the supposed founder of the royal house of Mercia. In one genealogy, he appears five generations above Penda (Anglian Collection).

Repton and Tamworth both fell within the territory of a people called the Tomsæte, ‘the dwellers by the River Tame’ and the Iclingas perhaps began as the leaders of these people, who established themselves in "an open meadow by the Tame" which they called "Tomworðig (Tomworthy). The settlement straddled the River Anker (which flows into the Tame). Bede described the Mercians as being the people who lived north and south of the River Trent, and it should be noted of course that the Tame flows into the Trent at Alrewas in Staffordshire, so to talk of the Tame Valley Mercians and the Trent Valley Mercians is to refer to a small enough area. In fact, Tamworth to Repton is a distance of only just under 23 miles. 

However, since we don’t know where Penda came from, for my novels I opted for Tamworth as his base which, of course, is not far away (11 miles or so) from where the Staffordshire Hoard was found - a crucial element of my tale. If we assume that Penda was one of the Iclingas, and that the Iclingas absorbed or were part of the Tomsæte, then Tamworth seems a fitting main residence. 

From the roof of the castle, the view of
St Editha's Church

The current castle sits high on a mound but dates back no earlier than the 12th century, while the original motte was built in the eleventh. The picture below shows the beautiful Norman herringbone brickwork. The location of Offa's palace has never been identified, although excavations north of Bolebridge Street in 1968 revealed what appeared to be the outline of a large Saxon building.

In the 1970s excavation work, also in the Bolebridge Street area, uncovered a water mill, dating from the 9th century or perhaps earlier. Remains of a second mill were also found. “Among the finds were the sole-tree of the mill, with its steel bearing; one of the wheel-paddles; many fragments of millstones, of local stone and imported lava; fragments of the clay bed in which the lower millstone was set; and the residues of lead window-cames. Grain and grain impressions include oats and possibly barley. The second mill was destroyed by fire.” [Archaeology Data Service] 

A few generations after Penda’s rule and that of his immediate family, the succession switched to another branch of the royal house. Then, in the eighth century, Offa appears to have favoured Tamworth while later kings based themselves elsewhere as I’ve mentioned. There was a period where no Mercian rulers were able to base themselves there, for Tamworth was occupied by the ‘Vikings’ in the ninth and early tenth century.

Which is why (and if you’ve read my novel about her life you'll know), Æthelflæd seems to have lived in the southwest - and thus the free area - of Mercia, with strong links to Gloucester and Worcester. However, in 913 her forces liberated Tamworth and it was here that she died in 918, still on campaign. The statue of her just outside the castle was erected in 1913 to mark the centenary of her victory over the Vikings. 

In 2018 there was a conference and a literary festival held at Tamworth to mark the 1100th anniversary of Æthelflæd’s death. I was there, giving a talk about the Lady, and even met her myself.

There was much talk about her, quite rightly, and mention of Offa, of course. But I also spent the weekend wandering around looking for the site of the excavated water mill, and imagining Penda and his family living in the town which would, of course, be unrecognisable to them now. But there is something there which just might catch their eye: Tamworth Castle now houses the largest collection of pieces from the Staffordshire Hoard outside Birmingham. And, as I said, the hoard plays a crucial part in my tale… 

Cometh the Hour

The Sins of the Father 

[All photographs taken by/copyright of the author. Promo Graphics by Avalon Graphics]

You can find all my books, fiction and nonfiction, at

http://viewauthor.at/Annie-Whitehead

The Early Fortress of Bamburgh

The ancient fortress at Bamburgh has featured heavily in my two-book Tales of the Iclingas series, because it’s where all the baddies live!

Actually, that’s not completely true, but Northumbria was certainly no friend to Mercia during this period.

'Modern Day' Bamburgh Castle - photo courtesy of 
David Satterthwaite

I thought I’d talk a little today about the history of Bamburgh itself. It’s famous, and has been used as a backdrop in many film and TV dramas, but what were its origins?

The first warlord of Bamburgh about whom we have any detailed information was Æthelfrith, and the Britons called him Flesaur, or "the twister.” What came to be known as Northumbria was initially two separate kingdoms: Bernicia in the north, centred around Bamburgh, and Deira in the south, centred around York.

Æthelfrith seemingly had designs on Deira, and launched an attack during which the king of Deira was killed, Edwin (possibly the king’s brother) was driven into exile and Acha, his sister, willingly or not - I suspect not - was then married to Æthelfrith. In time, their progeny would bring the two Northumbrian kingdoms together, but it was a long road, one that began with Edwin taking a circuitous route out of exile and seeking revenge…

Via Wiki Commons - Attribution Link

According to Bede, Bamburgh (Bebbanburh) was named after Bebba, first wife of Æthelfrith. Who was Bebba? No one knows. That’s the only mention of her. Whether she was still alive when Æthelfrith popped home with new wife Acha in tow, we don’t know. 

She might not even have been ‘Anglo-Saxon.’ How these people, specifically the Angles, came to be ruling this area isn’t clear, but it seems that it had previously formed part of the kingdom of the Gododdin, a Brittonic people of the Hen ogledd (old North).

The island of Lindisfarne is just off the coast of Bamburgh and when Oswald, son of Æthelfrith, came to power, he sent for Aidan from Iona to found the monastery there.

(It was here that the exquisite Lindisfarne Gospels were produced in around AD700. You can read more about them HERE. Sadly, Lindisfarne was of course, also the victim of a devastating Viking raid in 793.)   

In my novel Cometh the Hour we see various Northumbrian kings in residence at Bamburgh and in The Sins of the Father it is once again the central location in the north. However, kings at this time were wont to move around, visiting their estates. For ease, and to prevent scene after scene of royal courts on the road, I kept the scenes in the north almost exclusively set at Bamburgh. Although, in Cometh the Hour, Yeavering is shown being built, and you can check out a blog post about Yeavering HERE 

It’s not hard to see, when you look at photos of Bamburgh, or when you’re there in person, why this site lends itself so well to a royal fortification. Sea for protection? Check. Rocky outcrop? Check. Commanding view of the area? Check.

"Bamborough Castle from the Northeast, with Holy Island in the Distance,
Northumberland" by John Varley (1827; Metropolitan Museum of Art

The site is 150ft above sea level. Recent excavation has revealed that in pre-Conquest times, there was a timber hall on the edge of the site near steps which came up through the cleft in the rock. The Bamburgh Research project has details of St Oswald’s Gate, which formed the entrance to the fortress from at least the latter part of the eighth century and probably gave the only access to the fortress at that time. It would have given access from the stronghold to the settlement that lay to the west - probably where St Aidan’s church now stands, and perhaps also provided access to the sea via the beach, where there might also have been a harbour. 

Not surprisingly, this royal vill would have been quite the centre of industry. Archaeologists have also found evidence of an ‘industrial mortar mixer’ indicating the presence of a major stone-built building. 

Stunning archaeological finds have included two pattern-welded swords, one a two-strand, and one a six-strand. Pattern-welding is a method of making sword blades by twisting strands of metal together. This process produces blades with shimmering patterns. The six-stranded weapon was probably wielded by someone of very high status; perhaps the king himself. In the photos below you can see one of the swords and what it would have looked like when it was new (images from Janina Ramirez on Twitter)

Another find was the famous Bamburgh Beast, a small zoological design in gold. It seems there was a stone carved chair, which would have served as a gift-stool (a throne, essentially). 

Excavation has not just revealed artefacts though and the area is now well-known for its bodies.

First revealed by a violent storm in the 19th century, the Bowl Hole graveyard is hidden within the sand dunes a few hundred meters south of Bamburgh Castle. Dozens of individuals were uncovered during excavations between 1998 and 2007. These remains have been analysed and you can find out more HERE 

One skeleton found at Bamburgh was that of a young man, whose left shoulder was sliced away and his pelvis had been sliced all the way down to his left knee. It is possible to envisage how he was standing, with his left arm slightly forwards, in a defensive pose. Another skeleton was of a youth who was seriously disabled, with a malformed right knee which would have inhibited walking. He was buried though in a high status cemetery, a mark of how much he was cared for during life.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the castle has been used many times as a filming location. I was aware of some, but here’s a link to a list - and it’s a longer one that I imagined!

Cometh the Hour:

The Sins of the Father:

You can find all my books, fiction and nonfiction, at

http://viewauthor.at/Annie-Whitehead

Stepping Back into Saxon England and Other News

 It's been a while since I posted a new article here. There's a good reason, honestly!

The middle months of 2021 went by in a rush, filled with the tasks of getting The Sins of the Father out into the world, and writing blog posts for all the kind bloggers and authors who agreed to help me spread the word. The reviews have been wonderful so far.

I wrote some posts for this blog, here, too, but decided to hold them back until the paperback was published. There was a delay at the printers, unfortunately, so it will be a few weeks until the paperback edition is available.

Something else was also going on though, and that was a joint mini blog tour undertaken with Helen Hollick.

We timed it to coincide with the anniversary of the battle of Hastings and you can find all the posts here:

My posts for Helen's Blog

Monday Mystery: The Staffordshire Hoard

Wednesday Wandering: Sites Associate with Saxon England (and standing in fields getting emotional)

Friday Furries: Anglo-Saxon Animals and the uses they were put to.

Three Questions and Answers

Helen's posts on my blog

What If? Some other events in history that might have been turned upside down

Why did Harold Godwineson make that fateful trip to Normandy?

Three Questions and Answers

I hope you find some - or all - of these articles of interest. Stay tuned for some posts relating to The Sins of the Father and an announcement about the paperback release...

Roman Remains – Did the Saxons Use Them?

I suppose the first thing that springs to mind when we think about ‘what the Romans did for us’ is that they left some rather straight roads. Did the Anglo-Saxons use them? I’d say absolutely yes. Why would they not? Let’s work backwards here. 

With York being so important, not only to the Anglo-Saxons but then later to the ‘Vikings’ who had it as the centre of their kingdom, a road heading due south from York - Ermine Street - was bound to have seen heavy traffic, in particular, when Harold Godwinson marched his troops up to Stamford Bridge in 1066 and back down again to meet William of Normandy. Could he have moved his troops - men and horses - so quickly without using the Roman road (the most direct route)? And as fellow author Helen Hollick has pointed out, those roads must therefore have been well maintained. 

Another Roman road, Watling Street, was, famously, the line used to divide up the kingdom when Alfred the Great came to an agreement with Guthrum the Dane in the ninth century so, again, we have to assume it was still in use in the late ninth century if it was used as a boundary marker.

We have more certain and tantalising proof that the Roman roads were still in use though. In 2009 one of the most exciting finds to date was dug up in a field. This was the seventh-century Staffordshire Hoard and it’s surely no coincidence that it was found just off the A5, more usually known as Watling Street. Imagine the scene: whoever buried the hoard made a quick getaway along the old road, intending to come back at some point to retrieve it… (It’s a scenario I portrayed in Cometh the Hour.) 

The Staffordshire Hoard included many items - almost all of them military - inlaid with garnets, which brings me on to another aspect of Roman ‘remains’: jewels. From the seventh century on, for example, while glass beads remained popular, amethyst was incorporated, possibly from recycled Roman ornaments, but they were repurposed and worn strung lengthways with other beads, rather than dangling down, and pendants were also made from old Roman coins.

Staffordshire Hoard - Image Credit

What else did the Anglo-Saxons upcycle?

They didn’t, on the whole, reuse the domestic buildings. If the buildings were in poor repair, why did they not rebuild? They certainly knew how to build, so that wasn’t the issue. Reconstructions, such as those at West Stow, and the excavation of great halls such as Yeavering, show that they were not incompetent builders. Tacitus said that none of the Germanic tribes on the continent lived in walled cities, so it’s more likely that the Anglo-Saxons preferred to live in buildings that kept them feeling close to the natural world. I also think that affected the way they communicated. Their lifestyle was one of community gatherings, of feasts in great halls, with many folk sleeping on benches or on the floor of the halls once the food and tables had been cleared away. It was where they exchanged stories, gifts, and heard songs and poems performed. 

And here’s the crucial thing: the acoustic properties of wooden buildings also offer opportunities for intimate conversation. Sound will fall away, muffled by the absorbent materials in the building. Living communally provides companionship and a strong sense of belonging, but it must have been a boon to be able to conduct private conversations if the need or urge arose. Stone buildings have large spaces where sound echoes and resonates. 

Churches, of course, are a different matter. Plenty of these were built in stone and an early example can be seen in the surviving crypt at Hexham Abbey, commissioned by Bishop Wilfrid in the seventh century. With a good ethos of ‘waste not, want not’ recycled Roman bricks were used, from the remains of the Roman fort and town at Corbridge just a few miles away; Wilfrid's church was probably built entirely from stones taken from this site.

The crypt at Hexham abbey - my photo

A Roman town also played a part in a pivotal real-life scene in my novel Alvar the Kingmaker. It was the setting for a coronation, and not just any old coronation. King Edgar, who became king in 957, was crowned there in 973. Yes, 16 years after he ascended the throne. Can this be right?

Edgar had a chequered love life, with historians unable to agree whether he had two or three wives, and with earlier chroniclers suggesting that one of them was even a consecrated nun. For his supposed sins, he was allegedly given a seven-year penance, which delayed his coronation. But we know that by 964 he was married to his last wife, so that doesn’t explain the delay of the coronation until 973. Often-times, Anglo-Saxon kings had delayed coronations, but not usually for this length of time. 

Edgar’s epithet was The Peaceable, and there were no Viking raids during his reign. He had control of Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia and, during another ceremony in 973, was famously rowed along the River Dee by 6-8 (depending on sources) other kings of the British Isles, who paid him homage. He was also probably 30 years old in that year, the canonical age for ordination. This might have been significant; a sort of symbol of spiritual maturity. 

I suspect that this was a second coronation, and that Edgar’s age, and his supremacy over the kingdoms, was being marked. Bath was on the edge of the two major erstwhile Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, kingdoms which had traditionally voted for different candidates for the throne, including Edgar’s own accession, so its location would signify a unification. More than this, though, is the fact the Bath was a remnant of the Empire and this would have been a very clear sign that this was some kind of imperial coronation. It’s clear that the memory of the Romans was very much alive.

Not that this helped in the long run. With all those wives/women came a few children, which meant, ultimately, another fight for the throne. Alvar the Kingmaker certainly had his work cut out…

Find all my books (fiction, nonfiction and short stories) HERE

When Monks go Off-message

History is a serious business, in the main. We look at documents, chronicles, diaries, in order to analyse reigns, policies, wars, social deprivation...

Sometimes though, history - specifically that recorded by monks - can make us chuckle. Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which I do on a regular basis, I never fail to smile when I see the entry for the year 776. It tells of a battle fought at Otford, but it doesn't say who won, and it also informs us that "marvellous adders were seen in Sussex."

Later on in the pre-Conquest period, in 1058, the earl of Mercia, Ælfgar, was banished for a second time. He wasn't away for long, returning as he had after his first banishment with the help of the Welsh. This time though he also had a Norwegian fleet with him, commanded by Harald Hardrada, but we don't know if this was a planned invasion, or just an attempt to restore Ælfgar to his earldom in Mercia, because as this point the Chronicle says that it was all "too tedious to relate." 

It kind of skews the image of monks, with heads bent over their writing desks, diligently expending their best efforts in the pursuit of accurate recording of events. And in that vein, I am grateful to the Anglandicus blog for bringing to my attention the case of the Irish monk with an almighty hangover. A ninth-century copy of a Latin Grammar has a marginal gloss in Ogham script which apparently translates as Latheirt and has been defined thus: "Ale [Lait] + killed [ort], i.e. ale has killed us, that is ale drinking." So it would seem that the monk was hampered in his endeavours by a hangover. 

It gets worse...

I'm currently writing the follow-up to my novel, Cometh the Hour, and as I always do, I checked my reference books for details about the Anglo-Saxon way of life. I was thrown a little off-topic though when I came across a reference to a particular craftsman, cited for having advanced through his abilities. This man had made a name for himself as a craftsman, specifically a metal-worker, and had risen from being a monk, to an abbot and then a bishop. "It was at this stage he disappeared, as did the gold and jewels provided to make a new crown for the king (Edward the Confessor) and the bishop’s treasury."[1]

Well, I had to find out more...

The man in question was called Spearhafoc (Sparrowhawk), and this might have been a nickname, referring to the sharp eyes he'd need for his metal work. He began his career as a monk at Bury St Edmonds, but in around 1047 he was appointed abbot of Abingdon by King Edward the Confessor. There's a suggestion in the chronicle of that abbey that some bribery might have been involved, but by fair means or otherwise, he was made bishop of London in 1051. 

There was a bit of a hitch, however. Robert of Jumièges, the recently appointed archbishop of Canterbury, when presented with the king's writ and seal which made clear that Spearhafoc should be consecrated as bishop of London, stated that this had been forbidden by the pope. 

After trying a second time to persuade the archbishop and having again been refused, Spearhafoc simply went back to London and squatted there with, apparently, the king's full permission, "all that summer and autumn." [2]

But 1051 was quite a tumultuous year, which saw the banishment of the powerful Godwine family with whom Spearhafoc seems to have allied, and we are told that straight away after he'd exiled them, the king expelled Spearhafoc from the bishopric of London and Spearhafoc was never heard of again. 

Sounds like a straightforward case of politics, bickering, and clashes of interest. Certainly, Goscelin of St Bertin, an eleventh-century Benedictine chronicler, extolled Spearhafoc's skills in goldsmithing. The Abingdon Chronicle also mentioned that he was marvellous at working gold and silver. So it does seem as if these talents helped propel him to high office and yes, craftsmen could advance. However, the Abingdon Chronicle also mentions that when Spearhafoc left London, he took with him a store of gold and gems which the king had given him to make an imperial crown [3] and it appears he also took valuables from the diocesan stores.

As historian John Blair has said, there seems very little other than Spearhafoc's skills as a craftsman that might have recommended him to the king, and I can just imagine him, thwarted, frustrated and under orders to quit the country, deciding to take with him whatever he could stuff into his bags.

None of these stories helps my research, but I do enjoy them, and they are a reminder that even monks' patience can sometimes snap!

My own photo of a visiting Sparrowhawk

[1] Anglo-Saxon Crafts - Kevin Leahy p 172.

[2] ASC (C-F) 1042-1087  E 1048 (1051)

[3] Chronicon monasterii de Abingdon, 1.462–3)

Murder in Saxon England

There were laws against killing people in times of peace, of course there were, and the punishments were severe, although I'll save the details for another blog post. Suffice to say that one did not murder with impunity. But there are some notable, high-profile cases which either went unpunished, or weren't murders at all. 

Firstly, and sadly, there seem to be a lot of documented cases of child killings and female killers. But as I’ll try to show, they should perhaps be taken with a large pinch of salt. 

Children

In the seventh century, a Mercian king, Wulfhere, allegedly had two sons who had been baptised by St Cedd. This so offended their father that he ‘killed them both with his own hands.’ The problem with this story is that the boys, if they even existed, had a sister who was allowed to live, and became a holy woman, living as a nun on her father’s estates. It hardly seems compatible with an anti-Christian child killer.

Then we have the strange case of Abbess Cwoenthryth, who arranged to have her little brother killed and was discovered when a dove dropped a message on the altar of St Peter’s in Rome, alerting the pope to the crime. To avoid being discovered, she chanted a psalm backwards and her eyes fell out. Now, there is slightly more evidence for the existence of this brother, Cynehelm or Kenelm, but he wasn’t a child; he simply pre-deceased their father the king and, tellingly, this abbess had a long-running argument with the Church about her abbey lands, so this might be why she received such a bad press.

There’s another recorded murder of a young man, but there may be some truth in the story. He was supposedly killed for objecting to the marriage of his mother to a contender for the Mercian throne, and he may very well have been caught up in a dynastic dispute. This young man was Wigstan, and it's possible to visit the site where in all likelihood, his bones were laid to rest, in the crypt at the church in Repton which is named after him.

My photo of the crypt at St Wystan's
Church, Repton

Murderesses

A murder which certainly happened was that of Edward the Martyr, who was allegedly killed by, or on the orders of, his stepmother, Ælfthryth. I’m not convinced, because she too was given a rather bad press, but there’s no disputing the fact that Edward died and her son, Æthelred (the 'Unready') then became king.

Depiction of Edward's visit to his stepmother
where he was allegedly killed on her orders

Another woman accused of murder was a Northumbrian princess, Alhflæd, who was married to the son of her father’s rival and, according to the Venerable Bede, arranged her husband’s killing. We are not told why, or whether she was punished, only that around Easter time, she killed her husband Peada, who was the son of Penda of Mercia. 

We do know of a later murderess who, jealous of her husband the king’s advisers, poisoned one of those counsellors and accidentally killed her husband along with him. She was punished, banished abroad (ending up briefly at the court of the Emperor Charlemagne) and was supposedly the reason why kings’ wives in Wessex from that point on were never called ‘queen’. But this story of Eadburh, daughter of Offa of Mercia, is one which I've explored in depth in my books and there's a little bit more to this story than meets the eye...

Assassination attempts 

In seventh-century Northumbria, King Edwin was establishing his supremacy when an assassin was sent from the south to his court, hiding a poisoned blade under his cloak. Lunging forward, he made a rush for the king and was only prevented from killing Edwin by the bravery of Edwin’s thegn, who put himself between the assailant and the king, although Edwin nevertheless sustained an injury. The thegn was somewhat less fortunate.

And this leads me nicely onto the second batch of recorded deaths, which I think warranted more investigation...

Convenient Deaths

In 946 King Edmund was murdered, supposedly either in a brawl, or by a robber who’d been previously banished but returned, evidently with a score to settle. Investigation by historians though suggests that this was more than likely a political murder arranged by members of a rival court faction. *

His sons, Eadwig and Edgar, eventually became kings, one after the other. Trouble was, there were still rival factions at court, so much so that for a while the country was split, with one half supporting one son, the other supporting the other. And then, around two years after the partition, the elder son, still only a teenager, died. There’s absolutely nothing anywhere in the records to say how, or where, but it was very timely for his enemies.

This wasn’t the first time the country had been split. Those boys’ father had become king after the death of King Athelstan. When his father died, he left Mercia to Athelstan, and Wessex to Athelstan’s half-brother who, conveniently, was dead within the month. Again, no record of foul play.

We’re starting to get a pattern though. In the latter part of the period, England endured a renewal of the Viking incursions only this time they weren’t raiding, they were conquering. Cnut had come to stay, and after a series of bloody but ultimately indecisive battles, it was agreed that the country would be jointly ruled by him, and his English adversary, Edmund Ironside. Guess what? Edmund was dead within the month. This time, slight record of foul play, with some later sources suggesting he was murdered whilst on the privy.

Depiction of Edmund Ironside

Of course, it is possible that Ironside died from wounds sustained in the last battle, but this wasn’t recorded either, even though I’m fairly certain that cause and effect would have been understood: you get wounded in battle, you die a short time later, the wounds are probably what killed you.

What I love about studying this period, and writing about it, is that we have two avenues of exploration: The later, Anglo-Norman chroniclers, who tend to over dramatize and exaggerate, giving us sordid stories about child killers and evil women, and the more contemporary sources who give us minimal information and seem sometimes to ignore the obvious.

Diving down these paths on the search for the truth is good fun, but often inconclusive. Still, it's all perfect fodder for the novelist and always interesting to wonder about motive, for both the killings and the reporting of them.

[A version of this article appeared on Pam Lecky's Blog in October 2020]

You can read more about all these characters in my books Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom and Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

The family of King Penda feature in my novel Cometh the Hour and its sequel which is currently in draft form, and the young kings Eadwig and Edgar, and the alleged murderous stepmother Ælfthryth, all appear in my novel Alvar the Kingmaker 

*For more on the murder of King Edmund, check out my story in Betrayal which is FREE to download!